


Assistance

by Rshinystars



Series: Consequence [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Café, Friendship, M/M, Meeting, it stops being a coincidence, nice!Ardyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 04:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11154657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rshinystars/pseuds/Rshinystars
Summary: Noctis goes to Ardyn to release stress. Ardyn can’t help but be amused that the prince chose him.





	Assistance

The prince in front of him sighs in frustration. Ardyn hums amused by the current situation. Noctis seems to have become burnt out from the past week and somehow made his way to him. Truly, Ardyn hadn't intended on seeing the prince so often after their initial meeting, but somehow he has shown up more often than not over the past two weeks, whether it’s just passing each other by on their way somewhere, going the same direction, or Noctis just plops himself down in front of Ardyn in this cafe, it’s nothing Ardyn had anticipated. Today, Ardyn had to save him from his own demise. The prince has apparently been overwhelmed by the amount of work his father and the council have been putting on him. His advisor apparently hasn't been making it any easier.

“I still can't fathom why you would come to me, your highness,” Ardyn admits sitting across from him at the table they met at last time.

Noctis huffs, “I didn't try to find you. You just happened to be here. I was going to call one of my friends but…”

“But?”

“Forget it,” Noctis shakes his head.

Ardyn decides to humor the boy for now, “What exactly is your problem?”

Noctis rubs the bridge of his nose and looks out the window. Staring at nothing, just trying to distract himself from everything else.

“There’s some meeting I have to go to,” Noctis begins. “And there are going to be a bunch of officials and everything there, so Ignis has been stressing me out to learn everything for it. It’s just a lot at one time.”

A smirk plays at Ardyn’s lips as he looks at the papers in front of him that are dealing with important diplomatic issues and documents that need his opinion. The young prince truly has remained shielded from his royal duties if he’s complaining about that. When Ardyn was back in Niflheim, that was his daily life.

_ He’s young still _ , Ardyn tries to reason with himself. Even if he was once the prince and king, he has to remind himself that times have changed. For better or for worse.

“I see,” Ardyn carefully chooses his words to avoid pushing him away. “And you need to learn all this by when?”

“Two days from now.”

Oh. Ardyn takes a sip from drink putting down his pen for a second. He examines the prince carefully.

“When were you informed of it?” this could be the reason why Noctis is so panicked about it.

“Two days ago,” the prince’s eyes falter slightly. He looks genuinely worried about this. Is this his first time dealing with all of this? Surely it can’t be. Perhaps, he hasn’t had such short notice to prepare for this before. Three days isn’t that short of a time when you’re always working with these things.

“Have you done this before?” amber eyes try to follow the young prince’s gaze. He’s truly staring at nothing.

Noctis shrugs weakly, “Yeah… But not with this little time.” As Ardyn has suspected. “Plus…”

Ardyn feels like he’s pulling teeth. Constantly having the question the boy for answers is starting to annoy him. He just wants solid answers. Not ones that he drags out and hesitates to answer.

“Plus?” he urges.

“I just… I don’t enjoy these things. I don’t really like crowds and public speaking…”

Ardyn snorts, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that comes with the job, Your Highness.”

Rolling his eyes, Noctis groans out of frustration. He rubs his eyes and shakes his head. Ardyn rests his head on his hands as he looks at Noctis curiously. Truly, this boy is immature and inexperienced. Only around 17 or so, Ardyn supposes it makes sense. When he was his age, he might not have desired such a responsibility.

He just knows he dealt with it.

“Why did I come to you?” Noctis gives a wry smile.

Ardyn sits back in his chair slightly, “You are not the only one wondering that.”

“It was probably just to rant,” Noctis admits. “You don’t seem to care. And you seem like you talk a lot.”

Ardyn would have been slightly annoyed by his comment if it weren’t true.

“This seems to be important to you,” Ardyn remarks. “I suppose I can give you some time out of my day.”

Noctis gives a weak chuckle, “Yeah, I appreciate it.” Slowly, he begins to stand, “I’ll leave you be. You seem busy--”

“It’s quite alright actually,” Ardyn admits. “Considering I’ve been staring at these papers for well over four hours straight, it is a nice break.”

Noctis wrinkles his nose at the amount of time he’s been spending working on this. Eying his papers, Ardyn begins reorganizing them. Shuffling through them, he notices that the prince has sat back down but is now staring at Ardyn’s work.

“What is all that?” Noctis asks leaning over.

“Work,” Ardyn clicks his tongue when he drops a paper. Before he can move to get it, Noctis is already half-way down to get it. “Thank you.”

Noctis hands it to him, “What do you do?”

Ah, Ardyn had forgotten about this tiny detail. He can’t just break it to him that he’s the Chancellor of Niflheim, no, that wouldn’t be a good idea at all.

“Like I said, I’m a wanderer,” Ardyn waves his hand aimlessly. “For good reason, but that shall remain a secret a little while longer.”

Annoyance filters into Noctis’s face. Obviously, he doesn’t appreciate how Ardyn refuses to inform him of anything he asks. Truthfully, it’s not something he can just reveal. If he did so easily, more problems would occur than Ardyn is willing to deal with. As old as he is now, he doesn’t have the patience for those things.

“Why is that a secret?” Noctis asks resting his head in his hands. “Something to do with your healing magic.”

A wide grin makes its way onto Ardyn’s face, “I do not have any healing magic, so you can rest your concern. It’s not anything significant. I’d prefer to not reveal everything about me so soon.”

“I barely know anything about you.”

“And that works just as well.”

Noctis cocks his head to the side, “Are you researching something about foreign policy or whatever?”

Ardyn nods as he reads one of his papers before jotting down something in a notebook, “That’s essentially what this is, yes.”

“Then…”

“Then?” Ardyn doesn’t look up as he continues to make notes.

“You can help me.”

“Help?”

Bemused, Ardyn gives his attention to Noctis. The young boy looks as if he’s just had a revelation. A light in his eyes that he hadn’t seen since they sat down at this table together. Initially, he just spit out that he was frustrated with everything in his kingdom and was seeking an escape. Now, he looks like a young child who’s seeing something they desire.

Nodding, he answers, “I need to learn all this stuff for the council two days from now. All it having to do with foreign policy and what’s going on in their country… What’s left of them outside of Niflheim anyway.”

Ah, this meeting that Ardyn was originally going to attend but decided to go about and do his own thing and pushed it onto some other unlucky soul. It seems that he’s glad he denied going. If the prince saw him in the room, that would blow his cover. Though, since his powers are preventing anyone from truly realizing who he is, he supposes it wouldn’t be that severe an injury.

“Isn’t your advisor helping you with that?” Ardyn waves one of the waitresses over. “I believe that was one of your original complaints.”

Noctis sighs, “Ignis is getting on my last nerves and I’m getting on his last nerves. Whenever things like this come up, he’s always on edge, really demanding and strict. It makes it hard to work.”

Ardyn can sympathise. He remembers those days; even as chancellor he still has some of those days. The emperor isn’t exactly the easiest man to work with and it always tries his patience.

“And--Ignis you said? He will be alright with this? I can’t imagine your advisor being happy with you skipping on the--” Ardyn cuts himself off as he answers the waitress. He looks to Noctis and says, “He would also like one.”

“Like one of what?” Noctis shakes his head in bewilderment.

The waitress leaves, and Ardyn continues where he left off, “I cannot imagine him being anywhere near happy if you skip on his lessons.”

The pure confusion on the prince’s face leaves Ardyn satisfied.

“I mean, yeah--I guess. I mean,” Noctis’s uncertainty leaves him stumbling for words. “I can talk to him about it. Say I’ve found some way or whatever. I can figure something out.” Ardyn rubs his bottom lip in thought.

“Are you sure? I believe he would probably be of more help. He’ll probably know exactly what to inform you of,” he muses.

Noctis shrugs, “I can just bring all the papers he dumped on me over the past few days.”

The waitress returns giving them both their drinks. Ardyn thanks her dipping his head slightly before looking back at Noctis who just stares at his drink. Eyes filled with confusion and reservation.

“I promise you I haven’t had it poisoned,” Ardyn releases a soft chuckle as he brings to cup to his lips. Taking a sip he continues, “If you believe that to help you, then I suppose I can try to assist you.”

It never crossed his mind that there was a possibility that he would become a personal tutor for the young prince. This was the last thing he ever anticipated. There were plenty of situations Ardyn had accounted for, however, yet none of them have occurred yet. 

“If you don’t want to help me, you can just say so,” Noctis avoids Ardyn’s eyes. Is he nervous to ask him for assistance?  _ After _ already asking for it? What an odd prince.

“I do not mind,” Ardyn gathers his papers. “Your coffee will grow cold.”

Noctis looks at the cup having forgotten he even had it, “Why did you order me one?”

“You look like you could use something to de-stress, milord,” Ardyn admits honestly. “This is personally my favourite one that they offer here. Granted, it is rather warm outside today, so I would understand if you wouldn’t want to drink it…” He looks up to see Noctis already drinking it. Ardyn allows himself a small laugh at the oddity that is this prince. “Is it not too hot to be drinking like that?”

Noctis only shrugs, “It’s not that hot. I’m fine. I made sure it wasn’t before I drank it.”

“Well, that’s lovely. Wouldn’t want to be the reason the royal tongue has been burned.”

“Haha, very funny,” Noctis rolls his eyes. “Like I said, I’m a normal person, just Noctis is fine.”

Carefully, Ardyn places everything in his bag, “I’m still uncertain if I should be calling you that so leniently.”

“It’s fine, really,” Noctis emphasizes. “Seriously, just drop all this ‘your highness’ stuff. It actually makes me really uncomfortable.”

Ardyn pauses and eyes Noctis, “Answer me truthfully.”

“Okay…?”

“Do you enjoy being the prince?”

With the way the prince talks, Ardyn can’t help but think that he doesn’t even want anything to do with this role. Royalty isn’t as wonderful as everyone dreams, he can admit that after once being so. That isn’t to say it’s undesirable.

Noctis bites his lip briefly, “Pass.”

Ardyn blinks, “Pardon?”

“I’m going to pass on that question,” Noctis explains looking down.

“You’re undecided then,” Ardyn tries to clarify.

Noctis smirks, “I said pass, didn’t I? You’ve dodged plenty of my questions; I think it’s only fair that I don’t have to answer all of yours.”

Ardyn sighs in resignation, “I suppose that is true. I will let you have that one then.”

“When are you free?” Noctis asks him.

Immediately, Ardyn looks up at Noctis with a playful smirk, “Watch how you ask that, my prince. Sounds like you’re asking me on a--”

“No!” Noctis immediately shuts him down. “No, I meant for the--uh--for the whole foreign policy run down or whatever.” The words are rushed. The older man hadn’t realized how easy it was to fluster the young prince.

Ardyn shakes his head with a slight apology, messing with him is just too fun, “Forgive me, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.” Mentally, Ardyn is scolding himself for having so much fun. “Whenever you require, I can make time.”

“Can we start later today then?”

“Later today?” Ardyn hadn’t expected such an urgent time.

Noctis trails his finger against his half empty cup, “If that’s inconvenient then--”

Ardyn hums looking at the time, “Later today should be fine. Are you bringing the papers that your advisor threw at you?”

Noctis laughs, “Yeah, really excited.”

The genuine laugh from Noctis allows Ardyn a small smile. He’s only met with the prince a few times, but he has to admit that he can be charming if he isn’t brooding or being annoyed at him.

Ardyn waves the waitress over to pay.

“What time later?” Ardyn asks. “That will determine whether or not I just remain here or leave and come back.”

“Ah,” Noctis’s eyes wander to the clock. “I’m not entirely sure. I have to take care of a few things with Ignis and I have training…” He reaches absently into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. “Do you have one?”

Ardyn snorts at the young man, “Do I look that old to make you question if I have one?”

Noctis grins apologetically, “Oh, no sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. That was a bad question. You don’t look that old, you look fine.” Ardyn hesitates at that. He wasn’t actually expecting a response to that rhetorical question. “I was just wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving me your number, considering you’re all secretive and stuff.”

Ardyn scribbles his number on a paper sliding it over to Noctis tapping it twice before standing up and heading towards the exit.

“Just give me a call at least 20 minutes in advance,” Ardyn waves absently to Noctis.

Noctis groans slightly, “I am really hoping this works…I’ll probably just text you…” Ardyn is gone before he can finish his sentence.

Ardyn smirks to himself as he walks away from the café, “This may be easier that I thought.”


End file.
